Thursday, 17 May 2012

If you've recently
downloaded the latest version in the series of “Angry Birds”
games, ‘Angry Birds: Space’, then you may have noticed
that during the level select stage, there is an option to share on
Facebook & Twitter, but there is also a new option – to share
on Weibo.

I'd never heard of this
site before and, after some research, it's likely that you haven't
either if you're reading this from anywhere other than China. I found
that Weibo is in fact a Chinese Micro-blogging website, similar to
Twitter. However, the only language it's available in at the moment
is Chinese, though if you were to visit the site and use Google's
“translate” feature, you'd see a very poorly translated English
version:

So why has the creator
of Angry Birds, Rovio, bothered including an option for English
speaking people to share on a Chinese website? Well, to understand
that, you'll need to know a little more about Weibo.

History

A basic version of Sina
Weibo, otherwise known as simply “Weibo” (微博)
was launched by SINA Corporation on 14 August 2009 after Sina's CEO
saw an opportunity after websites such as Facebook & Twitter had
been blocked in China following the Ürümqi riots in July 2009.

The basic functions of
this new site only included messages, private messages, comment and
repost where possible, but was so successful that the site continued
to expand, and, as of February 2012, had more than 300 million users.
It also has plans to launch an English version of Sina Weibo, to grow
worldwide, however the contents will still be controlled by Chinese
law.

Like Twitter, Weibo
uses many of the same features, such as users only updating posts
with a 140 character limit, and talking to other users using the
“@UserName” format.. However, unlike Twitter, unregistered users
can only browse a few posts by verified members (normally verified
users are, like on Twitter, famous people who have proven their
identity), and cannot see ANY posts by unverified members including
those sent to verified members. Also unlike Twitter, Weibo is
moderated.

So, although this seems
like a nice idea in theory, the site will still have to abide and be
controlled by Chinese laws in which users are not allowed freedom of
speech. Weibo and many websites like it in China are heavily
monitored as the internet has been censored in China, and has the
largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and
cyber-dissidents in the world. It is rumoured that there are over
30,000 members belonging to secret policing organisations to not only
monitor and block website content, but also monitor the internet
access of individuals. The following is a list of rules for anyone
(including tourists) wishing to access the internet in China to
follow:

“No unit or individual may use the Internet to
create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following kinds of
information:

Inciting to resist
or breaking the Constitution or laws or the implementation of
administrative regulations;

Inciting to
overthrow the government or the socialist system;

Inciting division
of the country, harming national unification;

Inciting hatred or
discrimination among nationalities or harming the unity of the
nationalities;

Making falsehoods
or distorting the truth, spreading rumours, destroying the order of
society;

Terrorism or
inciting others to criminal activity; openly insulting other people
or distorting the truth to slander people;

Injuring the
reputation of state organizations;

Other activities against the Constitution,
laws or administrative regulations.”

- Wikipedia

For these reasons, I'm not sure whether or not
opening a Weibo site for English users would necessarily be a good
idea, or even take off in Western countries such as the UK, since
people generally don't like being told what they can/can't post in
their “private” online space. The majority of my Facebook &
Twitter feeds are regularly full of quite a few things on the above
list, and if users were forced to comply with Chinese law on a
moderated site I'm not sure if disobeying the rules would end up
resulting in legal consequences.

Thanks for reading, I think maybe we'll just have
to wait and see what happens with this site, but i'd love to know your thoughts on this too!

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About Me

My Name is Liz, I started working for an under 18s website called GreatBritishKids.com back in October 2011. Due to the nature of the site, I'm interested in the other children's websites out there and how they compare to GBK.

Using the internet and websites such Myspace and Yahoo! chat myself from the age of 12, I am well aware of the kinds of dangers out there for kids and the potential dangers they face everytime they log on.
That is why I've got a keen interest into how other under 18 websites operate regarding their safety for children & teens. The articles I will be posting here will mainly be about reviewing the other sites and finding out what your opinions are on them, if there are any sites you'd like me to review and of course what your opinions are of GBK.com. If you'd like more info on GBK.com then by all means leave me a comment & I'll get back to you ASAP or have a look at their site for their safety features.